Day 37 July 24, 2016 Seneca Falls NY

Today we would go explore a place that Patti had studied about in Women’s Study classes in the late 1970’s: Seneca Falls, NY.  This town now seems to be really off the beaten path in terms of traveling around New York state, but in the mid 1840’s and 50’s, there was a lot happening here, and transportation would have taken a lot of people through this area especially with the canals, railroads and roads.  Seneca Falls was a crossroad.  Many of the progressive people of the times lived or travel through this area, especially abolitionists and those working for temperance, both men and women. 

When some of these abolitionists were at a world conference in London, the women delegates were not allowed to be seated and to participate fully.  This caused two of the women form Seneca Falls to decided they should hold a Women’s Rights conference when they got back home.  Some time passed, but in 1848, five women got together and decided to hold such a conference (which was very often the organizing tool that would happen.)  They put out the word that one was happening in ten days and hoped that people would come.  Indeed they did. Over 300 women and men came together at the meeting house in Seneca Falls.  

The building has been restored.  Our Ranger tour took us into the building.  Patti had tingles when the ranger went to the lectern and spoke some of the powerful words that were so radical at the convention.  Patti could picture the speakers in that same place nearly 170 years ago.

As a part of the this conference, a document was shared that was based on the Declaration of Independence, but was specifically a declaration of women’s rights that in part declared women’s rights that included the right to hold property and the right to their children, as well as the right to vote.  The last one was highly controversial, but in the end was passed and signed.  A fire had been started that would burn for the next 70 years until women at last won the right to vote throughout the US., with the  19^th Amendment in 1920.

Okay, so end of history lesson.  But, so much of this history happened in Seneca Falls which now has a National Historic Site run the National Park Service.  The Visitor's Center was a highly moving experience.  There was an excellent history of the Women's Rights movement and an opportunity to connect these past efforts to the present time  

Central in this movement were Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.  And we learned so much about their lives, their leadership and their enduring friendship. They did not meet until after the convention, introduced by a mutual friend on a street corner in Seneca Falls.  A statue has been placed there to honor this historic connection.

We toured Stanton’s house, just across the river from the Meeting House..  It was from this home that Cady Stanton prepared much of the materials and speeches that Anthony would carry around the country.  Stanton kept having babies, which kept her from getting on the road herself.  Once the children were sufficiently raised, she again took up a very active role.  The house was being restored by the National Park Service.

We also went to The Women’s Hall of Fame where we were both touched by reading about these amazing women’s both past and present who have been honored by the museum.   Some were old friends who we were very familiar with, and some we had never heard of.  They are preparing to move to a much larger space, and we will follow their expansion as it happens.

We were sad that museum home for Harriet Tubman was not open on the day we were in the area. She was the former enslaved woman who helped so many people use the “underground railroad” to get to freedom. She was also a very powerful speaker for the abolitionist movement.  So many very powerful people were in this area.  This also included Steven Douglass, who had a home nearby, and participated in the first Women’s Right’s Convention.   He spoke strongly on behalf of sticking to the demand for women having the right to vote.

Since Seneca Falls is assumed to be the model for Bedford Falls in “It’s a Wonderful Life.”  We tried to see that museum, too, but it was closed.  But we did see the bridge that played such a prominent role in the movie.  Capra,  author of the screen play as well as directing the movie, was in Seneca Falls for a bock of time while he wrote the movie.  A number of the sights around the town appeared in Capra's story, including the bridge. Sometimes you hit the schedule entirely right to see everything you want, and sometimes you don’t.

It was such a hot day, we grabbed some ice cream, and then went back to our AirBnB apartment for a quiet evening, and ate dinner in.